Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Black peppercorns have been used extensively all over the world, as a home remedy for cough and cold. This treatment can also be used for sore throat. Especially, when it comes to treating cough, nothing can beat pepper. Black pepper's native is south India and we use it extensively in home rmedies. Extract from pepper have been found to have antioxidant and anti carcinogenic properties. Even in cooking, I prefer black pepper corns over chillies. Pepper is used to treat both types of cough - dry cough(sukhi khansi in Hindi)and cough due to cold (sardi khansi). For dry cough, the pepper corns are dry roasted in an empty kadai, powdered finely and it is mixed with clarified butter (ghee) and consumed. Clarified butter is made by heating butter till the water is completely evaporated from it. It has longer shelf life than butter and it is highly regarded in India. We always have ghee at home and we have it with dhal for lunch. For cough due to cold, the pepper is dry roasted and powdered the same way and mixed with honey. This remedy can be safely given to children too. I have found that, this treatment is especially very effective with dry cough.

METHOD:
1. Take pepper in a small pan and dry roast it, till it gets heated up.

2. Powder it finely in a mortar and pestle.

3. For cough due to cold, mix it with honey. For adults 1/4 tsp of the ground pepper powder is enough. For children decrease it even more.

4. For dry cough, mix the same quantity with ghee and consume it.

NOTES:

Give this treatment continuously for a few days, to get good relief.

For small children, decrease the quantity of the powder, just few pinches of pepper powder will do.